


Got No Strings

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Twin Trade AU [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, PARALLEL UNIVERSES WOO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4029820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There aren't many rules in the Pines household; only two are really important:<br/>1. Don't mess with anything you know you can't handle<br/>2. Always tell somebody what you're up to. You never know when you'll need backup.<br/>And of course, she broke both.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>I've got no strings</i><br/><i>So I have fun</i><br/><i>I'm not tied up to anyone</i><br/><i>They've got strings</i><br/><i>But you can see</i><br/><i>There are no strings on me</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Got No Strings

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY FOLKS HERE'S THE DEAL:  
> This is set in the universe that Prime!Mabel gets thrown into in "Falling Hard," but it's obviously set before that happens.  
> It's this universe's "Sock Opera."  
> For the sake of clarity (or a reminder):  
> Ursa = Dipper  
> Max = Mabel  
> Lee = Grunkle Stan  
> Ford = the Author  
> Stan = ... the Author, but from the prime universe  
> Also this is a parallel universe, rather than an AU in the traditional sense. If you have any questions, feel free to ask :)

Ursa wasn’t used to keeping secrets from her Grunkles (from Granddad, maybe). But she knew that if she showed them the Laptop, they’d take it away. She was getting close to unravelling this whole _Blind Eye_ thing, and she knew that this was a huge piece of the puzzle, but the Stan Squad was weirdly touchy about the Society.

Max didn’t really get it – with a whole town full of weird things to explore, why get so stuck on the _one_ thing she’d been warned away from? – but he kept his mouth shut, too.

They sat in the Gravity Falls Library, because Ursa knew that they couldn’t talk openly about the Blind Eye stuff at home. Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan wouldn’t approve.

(This was saying something, given that – as long as she wrote down her findings – they approved of pretty much everything.)

Max, as always, was _all_ focus. Which is to say, he promised to help Ursa with her quest and then promptly started falling all over a girl. Ursa didn’t really begrudge Max his little flings most of the time; they didn’t have to have the same summer goals. But just this once, she’d really been hoping for a hand. Just the tiniest little bit of help from her dear, distractible brother.

Alas, no such luck. As soon as the first notes of Gabi Benson’s puppet show reached their ears, Max was a goner.

And so Ursa was on her own. That was fine, she could work this out by herself.

Yeah. Definitely.

“Stupid – empty – brain,” she said, punctuating each word by knocking her head against the wall behind her. She’d come home from laser tag all pumped and ready to work, sure that she had a bajillion new ideas for possible passwords and _one_ of them had to be right. Right? “Nope. I’m never gonna get this. Ever, ever, ever. And now I’m talking to myself!”

Ursa groaned and set the laptop aside, rolling sideways off of the window seat. She landed face-down on the floor with a thud. “Guuuuuuh.”

 _“Hey, Urs?”_ Max called from somewhere deep downstairs. “ _Could you bring down the googly eyes?”_

“Yeeeeah,” Ursa shouted back. “M’coming.”

And then, because Ursa was probably the best sister ever, she stood up, grabbed the box of googly eyes and glue, and scurried down the stairs to the living room. Max had totally taken over the living space on the first floor, but the living room was puppet-construction-central.

“Thank you-thank you-thank you!” exclaimed Max, reaching out with grabby hands to take the box. “This is going to be the _best_ puppet show ever. My entire romantic future rests on this moment!”

Ursa nodded vaguely, before flopping down onto the floor next to her brother and reaching for a sock. Max’s show featured all of their friends and local family (he’d written it on the fly, so it was kind of just a fantasy version of his own real life), so Ursa set to constructing sock-Wendy.

\--

It was midnight, and Ursa was sitting on the roof.

Strictly speaking, she was not _supposed_ to be on the roof, because of the aforementioned lateness of the hour, and also because she hadn’t been sleeping well lately and she couldn’t really be trusted not to just fall off. But she was on the roof anyway, and anybody who might care was long since asleep.

She was still trying to get into the stupid laptop, and the “wrong password” sound was really starting to grate. If it didn’t stop soon, she might just give up and chuck the thing off of the roof.

“There has to be a way around this,” she said aloud, because talking to yourself is never a bad sign. “Some kind of – shortcut. Or a clue, at least. _Gah_.” She flopped backward. “I wish I could just ask for help; I _never_ can’t ask for help.”

_YOU COULD ALWAYS ASK ME!_

With those words, the world turned monochromatic. In a snap, Bill Cipher hung in the air in front of Ursa, who instinctively recoiled.

_You know, you’re awfully persistent, kiddo._

“Ugh,” said Ursa, hugging the laptop tightly against her chest, “ _you_.”

 _You missed me, didn’t you?_ Bill said, and if he had an eyebrow, it would’ve been raised. _Admit it, you missed me!_

“Not likely,” Ursa replied. “You invaded Granddad’s mind! You helped Gideon almost destroy our home!”

Bill waved a hand dismissively. _It was just a job, kid. Forgive and forget, right?_

“I’m not stupid, Bill,” said Ursa. “I know better than to just forget what you’ve done.”

_Look, May – can I call you May?_

“No.”

 _Whatever. Look, May, I’ve been keeping an eye on you since our last little –_ he waved his hand around again, this time in a neat little circle while his eye glowed faintly red, then he blinked and he looked just the same as always – _encounter. And I must say, you’ve done well!_

Ursa raised her eyebrows sceptically. “Really?”

 _Really! You deserve a treat – like maybe an inside-out deer!_ Bill snapped, and a creature best described as “gross” appeared at his side. He laughed, and then the deer(?) peeled itself apart. _Anyway the point is, I like you. I just want to give you a hand. I only ask a_ small _FAVOUR in return._

“Yeah, no,” said Ursa. “I’d never do a favour for you! I helped drive you out last time, and I’d do it again!”

 _Suuuure_. He circled Ursa a few times. _Well, when you change your mind, I’ll be here. Ready to make a deeee-eeal._ He blinked, and for a brief moment his eye was blue and fiery. _Hey, wanna hear my impression of you in three or four seconds?_ His eye went wide, and he flailed his arms. _AAACK!_

Ursa woke up, sitting bolt upright and waving her arms wildly. “AAACK!”

\--

“Wow, Urs, you look awful,” Max said around a mouthful of pancakes. “I told you to get some sleep last night!” He dug a mostly-food-based rectangle wrapped in parchment paper and stickers out of the pile of puppets on the table. “Have a Max-Snack! It’s got glitter in it!”

“And more sugar than is safe to consume in an entire week,” Grunkle Stan added from the stove.

Ursa grabbed Max by the wrist and pulled him out of the kitchen, passing Granddad in the doorway. She only stopped when they reached the living room, which seemed to be Grunkle-free. “I had a dream with _Bill_ in it last night.”

“Wait, you mean the triangle guy?” asked Max, holding his fingers up in a triangle around his right eye for emphasis.

“Uh, yeah,” Ursa replied. She dropped her voice to barely more than a whisper. “He said he’d give me the code to the laptop in exchange for a favour. As if I’d ever help Bill, right?” She laughed, but it sounded a little bit forced, even to her own ears.

“No worries, sister mine,” Max said, grinning. “I’m passing off the puppet stuff to my production crew, and then I’m all yours.”

\--

Of course, things didn’t exactly go to plan.

Everything for the play came crashing down, falling apart, and Max went into panic mode.

Honestly, it was a miracle that Gabi had missed the stunning disaster that happened to Max’s props and sets about thirty seconds after she left. _But maybe,_ Ursa thought bitterly, as she sat alone in their attic bedroom with the still-locked laptop on her lap, _if Gabi had seen it, she’s have picked up and left and I’d actually have Max helping like he said he would!_

Because of course this whole crazy puppet thing meant more to Max than actually solving a mystery for themselves for the first time.

And then –

“ _Too Many Failed Entries. Initiate Data Erase In: 05:00 MINUTES.”_

“What? No!” blurted Ursa. “It’s gonna delete everything? I’ve only got one more shot?”

The world blinked black and white again. Never a good sign.

_Someone’s looking desperate!_

And didn’t Bill just sound _gleeful_ at that.

“I definitely told you to leave me alone.”

 _Aw, you wound me, May. I can help you, you just need to hear out my demands._ He was so ungodly cheerful, it almost made Ursa sick.

She glanced at the computer, which was still ticking down. She screwed up her face in frustration, then set the laptop aside and carefully stood up, eyeing Bill. “Er, what crazy thing do you want, anyway? To tear my head off? Steal my left foot? You gonna turn my hands to stone or something?”

Bill laughed. _Not this time, kiddo. I just want a puppet._

Ursa’s eyes drifted over to Max’s boxes. There were a few puppets left, strewn haphazardly about their room. “I dunno. Max worked really hard on those.”

 _Puh-lease. One measly puppet seems like a small price to pay for all the secrets of the universe,_ Bill said with a slight echo on the last word. _And anyway, what’s your brother done for you lately? You make all sorts of sacrifices for him, but when’s the last time_ he _returned the favour?_

Ursa closed her eyes tight. She was not considering this, she was _not_ considering this. Bill couldn’t be trusted; hadn’t the Stan Squad told her that a hundred times?

When she opened her eyes, they first fell on Max and his friends, who were goofing around outside, then on the laptop.

30 seconds left.

 _C’mon, kiddo._ He held a flaming blue hand out. _Tick-tock._

“Just one puppet, right?” said Ursa, eying the puppets again. “Ugh, fine!” She shook Bill’s hand. “So, uh, what puppet are you gonna pick, anyway?”

 _Let’s seeeeeee,_ Bill said. _Eenie, Meanie, Miney – YOU!_

And then Ursa had the strange, awful experience of having her soul ripped out of her body, though she didn’t quite register exactly what was happening until it was over.

 _“No, no, no!_ ” screamed Ursa, waving an arm through her own stomach. “ _What’d you do to my body?”_

“Mine!” Bill said with Ursa’s mouth. “You’re my puppet now, kiddo!” And then he threw the laptop on the ground and stomped on it. “Woah, déjà vu.”

“ _This can’t be happening_ ,” Ursa said, horrified.

“Wow, star-child, you never change,” said Bill, grinning and fussing with her hair. “That was all the other guy could say for a good half-hour when I got into _his_ head yesterday!”

“ _What?”_

“Don’t worry about it. Now, how do I get down to your Great Uncles’ lab?”

Ursa shook her head. “ _Oh, no, I’m not letting you down there.”_

“Fine, don’t tell me,” replied Bill, waving Ursa’s hand. “I know you wrote it down in that little journal of yours. I’ll just dig that out, yeah?”

“ _You’ll never find it!”_ Ursa shouted.

“Suuuuuure,” said Bill. “Hey, race ya downstairs!”

And with that, he dove down the stairs headfirst.

“ _Oh, that’s gonna hurt later,”_ Ursa said, wincing. She closed her eyes and flew through the floor, tumbling to a halt on the first floor.

When she found Bill-in-her-body again, he was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, gnawing on a Max Snack. “Y’know, you might as well tell me where that journal is, kiddo. I’ll find it eventually.”

“ _Yeah, that’s never gonna happen,”_ Ursa answered flatly. “ _I’m not gonna help you, and you’re not gonna find it.”_

Max stuck his head into the kitchen. “HEY URS I’M TAKING YOUR JOURNAL TO USE FOR THE SHOW I’M GONNA LEAVE BEFORE YOU HAVE TIME TO PROCESS THIS SENTENCE SEE YA LATER BYE!”

And then he was gone.

“Alrightie, bro-bro,” Bill said with a creepy grin, “See you there!”

“’ _Alrightie, bro-bro’?”_ repeated Ursa. “ _He’s got to know I’d never say that.”_

For a brief moment, they stared at each other, waiting to see if Max really _did_ notice the odd choice of phrase.

He didn’t.

Bill, having finished his Max Snack and pocketed a second, stood up and scurried outside. He only stopped briefly when the door slammed shut on her arm, and even then he just yanked it out instead of actually opening the door again. Ursa winced again, suddenly not so keen on getting her body back right away.

“ _Max!”_ Ursa called, flying over to where her brother was climbing into the car with Granddad and Team Grunkle. “ _Max, c’mon, you’ve got to hear me!”_

Max gave no indication that he’d heard anything at all, and then the car was gone.

“Nice try, kiddo, but you’re in the mindscape,” Bill said, still grinning. “And as long as you’re there, you’re basically a ghost!”

“Hey, Ursa, we’re heading over,” Wendy called from next to Soos’s truck, waving. “You need a ride to the theatre?”

“Yeah, that’d be great, darlin’,” answered Bill.

Wendy seemed a little thrown by this response, but shrugged it off. “Well don’t keep us waiting; get over here!”

“Yeah, dude,” agreed Soos, “Max’s invited, like, the whole town to this thing. We’ve gotta get going if we want good seats.”

Bill grinned some more, and ran over and climbed into the car.

“ _Okay,”_ Ursa said to herself once they’d all gone. “ _Okay, what would the Grunkles ask?”_

She flew back and forth in circles, almost pacing but floating about two feet above the ground.

“ _What am I?”_ she muttered. “ _A ghost? No, not a ghost, I’m a – a disembodied soul.”_ She smacked herself in the forehead. “ _Which is basically the exact same thing. Ugh!”_  She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “ _I’m in the mindscape, right? Bill can pull other people_ into _the mindscape… but they have to be asleep. And he’s a near-omnipotent dream demon and I’m – a twelve-year-old girl. Okay. Need a different plan.”_

Ursa crossed her legs, gnawing on her knuckle.

“ _Even Bill can’t interact with things in the physical world; he’s incorporeal, too,”_ Ursa observed, a realisation striking her. “ _He couldn’t touch the laptop until he had a_ puppet _.”_ She sprung into a standing position. “ _I’ve got to get to that show.”_

\--

“Have you noticed anything… odd about Ursa today?”

“Maybe; she seemed a bit tired, but that’s nothing unusual.”

“I have,” said Wendy, frowning. “She hasn’t stuttered or stammered once all day, and y’know, she usually can’t get out a sentence out on the first shot. Might be nothing, but it was –“ she shrugged. “Weird.”

\--

Max exploded into the dressing room during intermission. “Only 36 more musical numbers,” he muttered to himself, “you can do this, Maxie.”

Ursa felt a little stupid floating there and holding up a sock puppet of herself, but she knew it was probably her best bet. “Max! Bro, can you hear me?”

Max squawked and fell over, launching a shoe at her. It soared through Ursa’s head, but Max couldn’t see that. “AAAAH! It’s come to life!”

“No, no, Max, it’s me!” Ursa replied, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “It’s Ursa! Look, I need your help.”

“Ursa?” repeated Max, his brow furrowed. “But – you’re so much more of a _sock_ than usual!”

Ursa groaned. “Max. I broke the Rules, okay? I let Bill in; he tricked me. He’s trying to get my journal, I don’t know why. You have to protect the journal, okay? If you can delay him, I might have a chance to get my body back.”

“I don’t know, Urs,” said Max, glancing at the door. “This intermission’s not long, and I…”

There was a knock at the half-open door. “Hey, Max? Do you have a second?”

Max grabbed Ursa’s wrist with a vice grip and pulled it down to his side. “Hey Gabi! Come on in!”

Gabi pushed the door open the rest of the way. She set a small bouquet of flowers on the table by the doorway. “Max, this show is really stellar. It’s clear to me that you have a passion for puppets. If you can keep this up, I was thinking maybe we could go out for some fancy cupcakes?”

“I. _Love._ Cupcakes,” Max answered seriously.

“Sweet,” Gabi said, smiling and giving a bee-hand-up. “I’ll see you later, then.”

And with that, she was gone.

“Aw, Ursa,” said Max, looking out the door with a dreamy expression, “did you hear that? This has got to be perfect. Can it wait ‘till after?”

Ursa made a smushy face with the puppet. “DO YOU WANT ME TO BE A PUPPET FOREVER?”

Max sighed. “Of course not. Cover for me, okay? There’s a script behind the set, if you need it.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Ursa. “But Max – don’t break Rule 2.”

\--

Stanley, Stanford, and Stanford Pines did not have very many rules.

The few rules they _did_ have mainly involved not getting hurt or killed.

Ursa could only hope, as she sat on stage making puppets kiss, that Max hadn’t bypassed Rule 2 despite her warning.

(Rule 2 was the most important one, even though Rule 1 was “don’t mess with things you can’t handle,” because Rule 2 was “always tell somebody what you’re up to.” Ursa broke both.)

Above her, she heard a slightly ominous creak. And then:

“Bill-Ursa,” Max declared in a hushed voice. “ _Bilsa_.”

“Shh-shh-shh,” Bill replied. “Got to keep it down; wouldn’t want to ruin the show, would you? Whoops!” The giant wooden wedding cake dangling fifteen feet above Ursa’s head dropped a foot. “I’m starting to loose my grip, sweetheart. How ‘bout you hand over the journal, and I’ll tie it off?”

“No!” snapped Max. “It’s Ursa’s, she’s worked hard on it! I would _never_ give it to you!”

“You didn’t seem to mind taking it for yourself, running off when she needed your help,” Bill pointed out. “And haven’t _you_ worked awfully hard on this show? It’d be a real shame to ruin it for _this._ Come on, just hand it over. Are you really gonna give all this up just for your dumb sister? Honestly, what would she sacrifice for you?”

There was a long pause, and Ursa was so caught up in listening that she almost forgot to keep the show running.

“ _Everything_ ,” Max answered. And then the cake was hurtling toward the ground, with Max and ‘Bilsa’ inside. Ursa dove out of the way, even though she knew that technically it couldn’t hurt her.

From somewhere in the audience, she heard a Stan say, “Wh- uh oh.”

And then Bill and Max were chasing around the stage, kicking and punching when they were close but generally Bill seemed to be keeping at arm’s reach.

“Woah, hold up,” he said, dancing just too far away for Max to take a swing. “Wouldn’t want to hurt your sis, would you? Any more, I mean; I did a number on this body earlier, let me tell you.”

Max hesitated. Bill took this as a chance to launch himself forward, taking the offensive.

Max triggered the pyro for the finale as a distraction, but it didn’t seem to work.

And then someone was chanting; saying _old_ words from memory. It was Grunkle Ford, Ursa thought, but who it was really didn’t matter. What mattered was that Ursa _knew_ those words – couldn’t recite them from memory yet, but she knew what they meant, knew what they did.

An exorcism.

Grunkle Whichever was driving Bill _out_ of her body, and if she wanted him to stay out, she had to act now.

She dove for her (now eerily still) body, and after a moment found herself taking a gasping, shaky breath. Everything hurt, but at least she could _feel it._

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she wasn’t really sure who she was apologising to. Max. The Stans. Herself. “I’m sorry.”

Max scooped her up. “It’s okay, sis. It’s all over.”

“I ruined your play,” Ursa observed. The set was in shambles, there were puppets on fire, and the audience was picking up and leaving.

“It’s okay,” Max repeated. “Gabi’s…” His eyes fell on the puppeteer, who was now making out with one of her puppets. “… not that much of a loss. You would have been.”

“Kids!” Granddad called, running up the stairs on the side of the stage. “What _happened_?”

“I broke the Rules,” answered Ursa. “Bill – he tricked me. I shouldn’t have let him in, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey, stop,” said Granddad. “Rules-shmules. You’re here, right? You’re you. That’s all that matters.”

“Lee,” Grunkle Stan said warningly.

Granddad waved him off. “Worry about the consequences tomorrow, Stan. Right now, Ursa’s got a date with the first aid kit. The big one.”

That sounded good to Ursa. Yeah.

(Her punishment for messing with Bill and not telling anybody about it ended up just being a grounding until she’d written down every detail she could remember in her journal; Grunkle Ford had pointed out that _being possessed_ was really consequence enough for that particular brand of dumb.)


End file.
